Maison de l'Asie, first-floor salon, 22 avenue du Président Wilson, 75116 ParisIn his recent book, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, political scientist James C. Scott argues that the relatively egalitarian peoples of Zomia
(the mountain region spanning mainland Southeast Asia and southwest
China) have historically pursued a kind of statelessness that would
allow them refuge from political subjugation by lowland states. Neither
cosmography nor gender factor significantly into his account of
upland-lowland political relations. Using materials from my research and
fieldwork in upland South and West Sulawesi, Indonesia-quite far from
Zomia-I treat cosmography as crucial to the upland political imagination
in its variable embrace and evasion of the lowland state.READ MORE